We are eager to announce the arrival of four new collections from our longstanding project partner, the Middle Georgia Archives.
The Middle Georgia Archives, located in the Genealogy and History Room of Macon’s Washington Memorial Library, serves middle Georgia as a resource center for archival and manuscript collections. Muriel Jackson, the head of the Genealogical and Historical Department at the Middle Georgia Archives, notes that their collections include materials that represent “at least twenty-five Georgia counties.”
The new collections that are now available in the DLG include:
- Francis T. Tennille Slave Medical Care Accounts, 1859-1860 This collection consists of a single journal page of expenses incurred by medical treatment of Francis T. Tennille’s slaves in Calhoun County in southwest Georgia just prior to the Civil War. The page details what medical treatment was given and to whom. The fees were incurred by Dr. Walter T. Murchison mainly for tooth extraction and delivery of children. The entries list the cost of medicine, doctor visits, and treatments.
- Henry A. Hunt Letters, 1931 This collection contains two letters, with enclosures, concerning Henry A. Hunt, long-time African American educator, agriculturalist, and president of what became Fort Valley State College. The letters concern New Deal farm policies and poetry by a teacher on Hunt’s faculty.
- Isaac Scott Diary Diary kept by Isaac Scott of Macon, Georgia. The diary comments on Macon’s economic trends, social life, the weather, and the Scott family. The diary also provides some detail on Scott’s involvement in local banking and railroads. The entries are most heavily concentrated during 1859 to 1861, and taper off between 1862 to 1864.
- Macon-Knoxville Store Ledger, 1825-1831 Account book of a small general store based in Macon and Knoxville, Georgia covering the period from 1825 to 1831.
Jackson hopes to see these collections ignite interest in research projects about Georgia history. She notes that the Isaac Scott Diary “has some very good information on Macon history from a northern businessman who made his home in Macon” and that the Francis T. Tennille Slave Medical Care Accounts are remarkable in that “even though it is only one page it is very rare to locate original documents on slaves let alone medical treatment.”
We hope that you get a chance to look through these new resources that are now available from the Middle Georgia Archives.
